Marines remember the fallen in Afghanistan

Camp Pendleton battalion served in Sangin

Lance Cpl. Cody Elliott pays his respects to fellow Marines killed in action. Elliott was severely injured in a bomb blast in Sangin, Afghanistan while running to help a fatally wounded Marine.
— John Gastaldo / The San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma

Lance Cpl. Cody Elliott pays his respects to fellow Marines killed in action. Elliott was severely injured in a bomb blast in Sangin, Afghanistan while running to help a fatally wounded Marine.
— John Gastaldo / The San Diego Union-Tribune/Zuma

Lance Cpl. Joshua B. McDaniels, a 21-year-old Marine combat engineer from Dublin, Ohio, had the most dangerous job in what has been the most dangerous area of Afghanistan for international troops: walking point on patrol, sweeping for bombs in the insurgent minefields of Sangin.

When McDaniels was gravely wounded by an explosion, Lance Cpl. Cody Elliott, a 21-year-old infantryman from Pismo Beach, ran to help. Elliott stepped on a secondary device that ripped away one of his legs and a finger, and blasted his face.

McDaniels was among 17 Marines killed in Sangin with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment and its main attachments, during the “Geronimo” battalion’s seven-month tour that ended last month. More than 160 among the battalion’s force of about 1,000 Marines and sailors earned Purple Hearts for combat wounds.

At a ceremony Friday morning at Camp Pendleton, Elliott rolled in his wheelchair up to the long line of memorial battle crosses pelted by cold rain — a helmet atop a rifle, and empty combat boots signifying each man killed in action — to say a few words to his fallen friends.

As he clutched the identification tags, Elliott tried to control his emotions, but it was no use. He would have risked his life to help any one of the men with whom he served in combat, he said, and he will do it again if he has the chance.